[MacNN Staff]

For questions and comments pertaining to MacNN's in-depth preview of Oni:
http://games.macnn.com/features/0012/oni.phtml

Great preview, the shots spoil things a little, but it was a good read.

-Harry
Oni Central

Oni has not always been "second fiddle" to Halo because Oni was presented to the public long before Halo.

The reason that Oni has not received much press in the past year is because nothing new has developed. Who cares about new screen shots? I saw a really cool quicktime of Oni almost a year and a half ago; no screen shots compare to that. If you have seen 30 screen shots, you have seen them all.

The only Oni news of any significance in the past year has been that that they removed the capability of playing multiplayer Oni. My personal opinion is that is not one tenth of the game that it would have been with multiplayer. I am sure it will stil be a great single player game, but frankly I have no interest in it as a single player game. How can I show off my cool moves when the only other characters watching are computer controlled? I enjoy playing games with friends and family; no one wants to sit and watch me play by myself and I do not want to sit and watch someone else play. We want to play together.

I have heard all of the excuses about why the multiplayer code was taken out, but I still do not agree with the decision. It is their game - if they do not care if my friends and I buy it, then they can make it any way they want.

You are right - as a captain in a UT clan that was
really looking forward to Oni - that's 12 dudes that
won't run out and buy it.

Sklar ([email protected])

[lythari]

I hate limited saves.
I can understand why game designers want to put it in but in the end, it just becomes an irritation for the gamer.
Imagine this: you keep getting killed by this one guy. Everytime you die, you have to spend ten minutes travelling from the save point to face him again. After two or three reloads, I'd be tearing my hair out in frustration.
Hopefully, they'll change this before the game comes out, or rectify it in a patch like they did for Vampire The Masquerade: Redemption on PC (coming to mac next year .

[orlgummo]

Impressive. I won't gripe about anything until I can actually play it....at this point, it's a little like saying you don't like a movie that is still in production.

Give em a chance.

I personally thought that lack of netplay wouldn't be as fun - now after hearing about beta testers loving it, I can't wait for the demo to come out. As soon as it does, my prior prejudices notwithstanding, I'll be downloading and logging some time in. Hell, as much as I enjoyed Mortal Kombat in the arcades - people sometimes wouldn't play me. So, I leared to enjoy whooping on the computer, and I'll gladly do it with Oni.

The lack of save anywhere might seem really lame at first, but in a game like Oni, it will probably help it. Imagine if you could save before every battle - how lame would that be? Keeping fixed save points means that you have to simply learn more moves and get better than your opponents to beat them. And the lack of multiplayer isn't a huge deal for those of us on standard modems that wouldn't have been able to benefit from multiplay anyway.

A lot of people seem to be griping about the lack of multiplayer...That is fine and all, but I feel a far more important feature was removed, a feature that has been around since at least marathon...

Oni will not have saved game films...

I can live w/out multiplayer, as I almost never use it. Occasionally I'll play some UT, but that game really is multiplayer only. Most games with a plot (e.g. Bungie games) rarely take over my internet connection.

However, w/ the lack of saved films, forever lost will be the (in)famous Vid-master contests, funniest films, example how to's (where sometimes a text description just would not help), etc...

I think this will be the feature I miss the most...

Me too :sniff:

Originally posted by orlgummo:
Impressive. I won't gripe about anything until I can actually play it....at this point, it's a little like saying you don't like a movie that is still in production.

Give em a chance.

But dont u think that if people dont complain now, then they will complain later?

i mean people are complaining about actual features in the game, eg. save system, not graphics which would be stupid cos they could be improved if required...

if people dont complain now about the feature, they will complain later..

people wanting multiplayer action will not change there mind after playing the game in single player ...

I think its good people are complaining now, that way developers can get an idea on what they could change if required....

The saddest part is that the graphics are eclipsed by Q3 Team Arena, which is in demo now. Oni's only real hope for success is as a game which isn't technologically striking, targeted at Macs which can render the scenes smoothly (which is notably limiting).

On a more upbeat note, maybe Oni will inspire id Software to write something graphically stunning in the same vein.

Why would you compare Quake III: Team Arena to Oni? One is a first-person shooter with a focus on multiplayer teamplay while the other is a third-person action game with a focus on Mortal Kombat-style fighting in a single-player environment only. They're completely different games with totally different agendas.

I think that the game looks great. I know I'll buy it.

Dave

With Oni, the look is different. Its supposed to capture the Anime look, it's not supposed to be the latest and greatest in graphics. If Oni truly captures the anime style of combat (ala Ghost in the Shell. et al) its' going to rock. I'm buying it.

Oni is a OpenGL app with humanoid things running about, so comparisons will inevitably be made to Q3 & other games which use the same API.

Having played the Oni Beta (and still playing it).
All I can say is, this is a very very fun game, that
I really enjoy playing, but it's a bit of a bore that I
have to start over, at specific points when I die.

This game would be the king of multiplayer, if
G.O.D. would make it so (or who ever). It surely
would rule as a MP game, until Halo comes around.
And I would gladly buy this game, when it arrives.

Ive just played the beta, and this game kicks. Sure, no MP action has gotten me down a bit but I still love it. I will buy this game the day it comes out. Very enjoyable fighting engine, with a very cool atmosphere. Quit whigning ya namby pambies, wait till you play it and see.

Er, eh-hem, I "acquired" Oni �4, and to my wonderfully normal calmness, I went to dinner, came back, and it was still loading the beginning training session. To a G4, I say! ;-) I'm sure it's a hella-wonderful game, and hell, I might buy a G4 433 upgrade to play it, or maybe not,

iMatt

[Ruddigger]

Bungie who?


------------------
-Ruddigger
------------------
Have you had your
gigaflop today?

Oni has nothing to be ashamed about in the graphics department.
It's a totally different style of graphics compared to Q3, and in
some ways more impressive than Quake's, it's more fluid & elegant.

And it also runs more smootly than (on my Mac) UT & Q3.
Regarding it's beta status, it haven't crashed once, and it's a lot
quicker to startup, load/save than Quake III or Unreal T.

How does one go about acquiring the beta version?

[Ruddigger]

Hotline I'd suppose, but of course, all of these gentlemen have it legally....

Nabbing it off of a Hotline server really wouldn't be very Saintly Dave...




------------------
-Ruddigger
------------------
Have you had your
gigaflop today?

You mean there is no way to obtain it legally? Bummer.

Dave

P.S.- Saint is my last name, it's just a coincidence (or maybe not) that I am a Christian also.

Christian Dave Saint ?

[PhoenixG27]

I have the beta. I totally intend to buy the game when it comes out, what a great game!!! The gameplay is excellent, the graphics amazing, and the fight techniques are SWEET!! I do have some complains tho. The WORST thing about this beta is that YOU CAN'T TURN without using the mouse! The left and right keys should not be set to strafe! This makes gameplay much harder! PLEASE, bungie, give us the option to set turn keys, not just strafe. I don't want to have to have my hand on the mouse to move where I want to all the time.
Also, the save thing is annoying... let us save whenever we want!!!

------------------
"10-4. Phoenix out."

Just downloaded the demo.. runs great on a DP G4.. if you have a Formac card, save your connect time, it won't work at present with the ProGraphics control panel.. don't know about voodoo though

[paulc]

Demo works great with Voodoo 5 card.

Resolution setting was a problem though.. because when you select a resolution, it seems to freeze. Actually, it's a dialog that is invisible.. so set the res you want, wait for sysbeep, then hit enter/return. Oni will quit and when you re-launch, you video is set the way you want.

I just played the PC version. Yes the PC version. You're probably asking yourself: "What is he doing on a MacNN forum then?"
Well, no idea actually . I do know this: If Oni isn't going to support Multiplayer, I will NOT buy it. The only games I play are MP games, such as Half-Life (the ONLY game I ever played in single player, Valve is INSANE not to port it to the mac, cos it was the greatest hit, and the best game, ever on the pc. Counter-Strike is the most played mod on the inet) and it's other mods.

Oni is _nice_ in singleplayer, but get's, erm, less, after a while since the enemies have all sorts of big guns, while you don't. That's not a problem to me, but I'd rather have seen it totally without guns, but with some better fighters in it. Only in Multiplayer could I have totally enjoyed the game, now it's just average, and no more.

Maybe I'm spoiled by CS, TFC and HL though

[Mniot]

I remember the MacWorld (how long ago was it? 8 years? 12 years?) when Bungie had a demo of Oni that looked exactly like this... They had multiplayer too. It was 3 iMacs and a little arena, and you just ran around and thwacked the other players. It was actually really good. Now if it had had the guns too... ooohh... One of the best parts of the game is grabing some guy's machine gun, kicking him over, and shooting the body. If only I could do that to friends... <sigh>

[Misha]

Oni multiplayer works (I guess that would be "worked," since they removed it) fine on LANs and broadband connections... anything where your ping is under 200. From 200-300 it was a bit sketchy, but above 300 (most 56K connections) it was unplayable. You would punch and by the time game registered that you wanted to punch your opponent would have moved.

Bungie worked for months to fix this but couldn't. They then decided that they'd rather have no multiplayer than leave modem players out, which is a really, really poor decision in my opinion... especially since the code was all done for multiplayer. Last I checked Marathon only support LAN when it was released....

Oni is, quite simply, the best singleplayer game I have ever encountered. I have logged more time on the beta than on any game since Diablo. At first, I too was irritated by forced saves, but the upside is that they force you to learn new techniques--stealth, threat management--rather than finetuning one's run-and-gun and hoping to get lucky.

I will be buying this game in a hearbeat, despite having defeated the beta--maybe I'll get an ending this time. :-) Thank you, Bungie, for creating such a badass game. It's almost good enough to forgive you for selling out to M$. :-P

The beta? How did you get the beta? I thought that stuff was locked up or something. I dint know you could just get it. Is that allowed?

Man, I bet it sure is fun. I wish I could get it. It's just like a demo right?
Man, I bet that's awsome!

[Misha]

The leaked beta, b4, that lots of people seem to have picked up does not have multiplayer in it... it was removed a few builds prior.

I don't have the beta (though I wish I did, just to sample multiplayer), my information comes direct from an Oni programmer.